India might prevent exodus of specialist doctors

Concerned over shortage of specialised doctors, India may revive a law to prevent them from leaving the country.

Concerned over the shortage of specialised doctors, India may revive a 25-year-old law to prevent them from leaving the country.

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"There was legislation 25 years ago which banned the outflow of doctors in specialties like cardiology, neurology and anaesthesia" and this could be revived "if the need arose", Health Minister R. Anbumani said on Monday night.

"They were not allowed to go abroad. If the need to restrict their outflow from the country is urgently felt, we will discuss the matter with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and see what can be done about it," he told reporters on the sidelines of the 21st biennial conference of the Student Nurses Association, a wing of the Trained Nurses Association of India, at Melmaruvathur, about 150 km from Chennai.

"There is a great demand for specialists in areas like psychiatry and urology. Doctors have a responsibility to serve the people and they can't leave the county in pursuit of money after they have benefited from the education system here," the minister declared.

"If we identify a dearth of doctors in any specialty, we will then restrict the migration of specialists in that area", he added.

He, however, conceded that it was not possible to stop nurses from going abroad.

India currently has some 640,000 doctors and 850,000 nurses.

Anbumani admitted that nurses were a "neglected lot" and that their services and hard work were neither recognised nor realised by the community while doctors, on the other hand, often took all the credit.

At the same time, he said, he often received complaints, especially from state-run hospitals, that nurses often behaved impatiently.

"Your logo and motto should be smile and serve", he said.